MCI WorldCom outage cripples Chicago Board of Trade

MCI WorldCom outage cripples Chicago Board of Trade

Transmission interruptions on MCI WorldCom's backbone data network are
disrupting business for up to a third of the carrier's business
customers, company officials said today.

The difficulty began late last week during an upgrade of transmission
software, and the outages have been especially troublesome for banks
operating automatic teller machines that require data connectivity to
operate, as well as financial and commodity trading firms, which also
rely heavily on timely data delivery.

At the Chicago Board of Trade, transactions will resume today at 2:15
p.m. on the Board's Project A network, according to officials. Trading
was suspended at 9:21 p.m. on August 5.

The interruption prompted an angry letter from Board President Thomas
Donovan to board members in which Donovan said, "This latest problem
with MCI WorldCom comes despite numerous past assurances from [MCI
WorldCom officials] for improved Project A service."

A 'meltdown'

According to Donavan, MCI's own top operations executive in charge of
running the network called the outages a total "meltdown of the
network."

The outages also followed by two days a meeting with MCI WorldCom in
which Donovan "expressed my extreme concern and displeasure with the
unsatisfactory quality of service that they have been providing,"
according to the letter.

The outage cut off all transmission to Board Project A workstations
outside of the board's main building, prompting board officials to
develop contingency plans for future outages and initiate plans to
seek redress from MCI WorldCom, said boa

Answers

Ok, so no emails or telexes at work this morning due to MCI. My
personal ISP was hosed most of the weekend due to MCI. Spoke to
friend at price data distribution company which is dropping MCI due
to this problem. Spoke to friend at Anderson Consulting who said
that half their projects are currently experiencing major problems
due to this problem.

It was a software upgrade. Yeah. Uh huh. And you expect me
to believe their will be no Comms problems come Jan! Sorry
doesn't pass the sniff test.

And interestingly enough the press couldn't give a shit.
Hey there mr. newspaper man, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.
Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do when they come for you.

You guys give journalists a bad name. Grow some balls and start
reporting this shit.

I posted this on Silicon Investor, and thought it had some
relevancy here.

OFF TOPIC: Sort of.

IRIDIUM LLC, which runs the first global satellite-telephone
network, is 86 percent-owned by 19 investors, which also include
Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., Sprint Corp. and American
International Group Inc .... [Motorola's involved too.]

This GPS deal on August 21 is becoming more worrisome to me. I
sure hope that none of IRID's global satellites up there right now ...
have that end-of-week roll-over problem. Can you imagine what it
would do to Internet stock prices ... and on-line trading ...
and even "off-line" trading ... if we have problems with telecoms?

Could make that MCI outage/disruption pale in comparison, huh?

Sure a lot of telecom and ATM problems these days. Aren't there? Like
that one in Toronto that affected over 100,000 - and caused problems
from Ottawa to Vancouver. Of course that one was caused by someone
dropping a wrench, wasn't it?

And that other ATM problem in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago, that
affected ... what was it? 15% of ATM machines nation-wide? Of
course, that wasn't MCI. That was someone else.

Like I said. There sure have been a lot of telecom and ATM problems
these days ......

142 Days until 2000
P.S. I just heard on CNBC that 90% of hospitals are still waiting
for Y2K software upgrades. WHEW - High percentage. Surprised at
that CNBC segment. It was about a 5-minute segment focused on
Healthcare industry. No more laughing anymore.

The cellular infrastructure
business
has communicated to customers and company
customer contacts "work-
arounds"
for certain systems that will not be upgraded.
A "work-around" gives the
operator
necessary procedures to keep the system
operating on and after January
1, 2000. If a customer does not follow the
recommended procedures it is
likely
that the system will not recognize certain
dates properly, affecting the
accuracy of certain data. The business has concluded
that some of its systems are
too
old to either upgrade or provide a work-around
for Year 2000 issues. It has
notified
customers with outdated systems.
Additionally, a website
provides
Year 2000 information on certain discontinued
products. Some customers of
discontinued
products have been notified that their
system will not work and
information
has been provided on needed upgrades
and/or replacements. The
business
has sent out second notices and has asked for
confirmations back from these
customers.

***Management believes that
its most reasonably likely worst case scenario related to the Year 2000 issue is its
inability to upgrade all systems before January 1, 2000 due to the significant
number
of customer locations to be visited and to delays by customers in scheduling
upgrades.
As a result, system performance could be affected and certain data
routinely
available from those systems could be inaccurate on and after
January
1, 2000 until upgraded. As a result, the business could incur cost, and
potentially
be sued as the supplier of those systems, although its efforts to
identify
its customers and provide software solutions should reduce these risks.<
/u>

"In later cases, such as the Continental Illinois rescue of
1984 and that of the First Republicbank of Dallas in 1988,
the FDIC deliberately removed all limit on guarantees in order to
halt imminent runs, establishing the practical rule that some banks
with deposits over $100,000 were "too big to fail. When push came
to shove, the purpose of deposit insurance proved to be less taking
care of the 'little man' with a deposit of under $100,000, than to
prevent bank runs that would embarrass the system." Manias, Panics
and Crashes - Pg 140

Actually IMHO a far better book that detailed the whole banking and
S&L debacle, was a book called "Funny Money". Fascinating and funny.
Unfortunately, it's out of print.

Continental Illinois "achilles heal" was Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma.
CEO and other officers of Penn Square made all kinds of major
commercial real estate deals all over the place. CEO guaranteed many,
many loans with his signature ... and nothing to back it up. He did
deals with Continental Illinois.

I wish I remembered the guy's name. When I was looking for financing
for my marketing research company back in 1986, I flew up with a
friend who introduced us. [I didn't realize what was going on then.]

Anyway, we went to lunch. Got drunk. Lasted thru "Happy Hour". Did
a bit of dancing.

Then this guy tells me ... " You're sitting here drinking with the
man, who has had more personal lawsuits filed against him ... than any
other man in the United States! And, I'll probably be getting more.
HA HA"

"But, I put everything in my wife's name and a couple of my good
friend's names a long time ago. No one's gonna get anything. HA HA"

Say what???

And then he starts to tell me about all of these deals between Penn
Square and Continental Illinois. He laughed, drank some more, And
then he told me, "All it took was my signature. HA HA"

"And, I was signing guarantees with nothing to back it up. HA HA"

"I was greedy. They were greedy."

"They'd come here wearing those little dark suits of theirs, with
dollar signs in their eyes. Looked down at me like I was some cowboy
hick. But they wanted what I could give 'em. H*ll, they were as bad
as I was."

"Besides, they were too big to fail."
[That's where I first heard that phrase.]

Remember, these were the oil & real estate hey days. This banker from
Oklahoma, who helped bring Continental Illinois to their knees ...
wore cowboy boots to work.

When I got back to Houston and had dinner with some oil guys and
mentioned this guys name. They all laughed, and told me to get that
book, "Funny Money".

Iridium LLC, the cash strapped satellite-telephone company, which
defaulted on bank loans totaling more than $1.5 billion after
its lenders failed to extend today's deadline for the company to meet
conditions.

From Bloomberg

Iridium's banks had granted three extensions, most recently in June,
for the company to meet conditions on about $800 million in syndicated
bank loans. Iridium also defaulted on a $750 million bank loan
guaranteed by Motorola Inc., the biggest investor in the 66-satellite
network ...

The default is tied up in the wrangling over a restructuring of
Iridium, which doesn't have the money to pay its debts after getting
only a fraction of the subscribers it had promised. Iridium's banks,
led by Chase Manhattan Corp., are trying to protect their own
interests as Iridium negotiates a settlement with both its banks and
bondholders
http://www.techstocks.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=10915294

The $800 million loan was arranged by Chase Manhattan and Barclays Plc
and syndicated to 23 banks and institutional investors ...

MORE "FUNNY MONEY".

<It's too big to fail... and besides, as I mentioned before, the
Iridium system is the US govts backup communications system for Y2K
contingency planning.